While you may be familiar with classic creatures like vampires, ghosts, and werewolves, how much do you know about yokai and other figures in Japanese folklore? Many western monsters are purely malevolent, out strictly to harm the living, but yokai span a much wider range of personalities and appearances. You might already know about the trickster kitsune, the cucumber-loving kappa, or the terrifying oni.
Check out the list below for some manga featuring a whole host of yokai!
Elegant Yokai Apartment Life
Yokai, ghosts, and humans living together in harmony? Yushi Inaba was taken in by his uncle’s family after losing his parents in an accident three years ago. Now sixteen and eager to make it on his own, he hopes to move into a dorm upon entering high school. But by a cruel twist of fate, the dorm burns to the ground! After searching high and low, Yushi finally manages to find an apartment at the too-good-to-be-true price of 25,000 yen per month! Sure enough, there’s one condition: the apartment is haunted! Surrounded by a gaggle of colorful tenants, Yushi’s “normal” high school life begins! Waka Miyama delivers an elegant comic based on the popular novel series by Hinowa Kouzuki.
Yozakura Quartet
Hime is a superheroine. Ao can read minds. Kotoha can conjure up anything with the right word. And Akina … well, he’s just a regular guy, surrounded by three supergirls! Together, they protect the town of Sakurashin. But that’s not easy, as the town faces demon dogs and other supernatural threats!
Noragami: Stray God
Yato is a homeless god. He doesn’t even have a shrine, not to mention worshippers! So to achieve his ambitious goals, he’s set up a service to help those in need (for a small fee), hoping he’ll eventually raise enough money to build himself the lavish temple of his dreams. Of course, he can’t afford to be picky, so Yato accepts all kinds of jobs, from finding lost kittens to helping a student overcome bullies at school.
And don’t forget to check out Adachitoka’s latest, The Wolf at Memory’s End!
The Devil’s in the Lunch Deals
After having been suspended from the world of the gods as punishment, Solange has decided to start up a lunch cart in the human world…
Hozuki’s Coolheadedness
The manga that inspired the hit anime series! In the afterlife, there exists Heaven and Hell. Hell consists of the Eight Greater Hells and the Eight Cold Hells, which are further divided into 272 subdivisions. Spearheading the seemingly endless, multifarious affairs in this gargantuan Hell is but one Fierce God, King Enma’s first aide, Hozuki. Between this cool-headed sadist and his colorful band of peers, every day is a riot in Hell! And though this book might make Hell seem like a happening place, please try to behave during life!
The Kagari Monster Family
Unemployed and desperate, Ito Toma stakes her life on a housekeeping job at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. But she’s surprised to discover that it’s actually for the Kagari family, eight siblings who run a counseling office for monsters who disguise themselves as human! Now, she works at the so-called “Monster Center” to help the humanity-challenged with their problems.
Dekin no Mogura: The Earthbound Mole
Natsumi Eguchi took us to the afterlife with Hozuki’s Coolheadedness. Now, they take us somewhere even stranger: the land of the living. College students Magi and Yaeko’s lives take a strange turn the day a man is struck on the head by a falling dictionary from the sky. Bleeding, dazed, and refusing help from the police or paramedics, he sets off every alarm in their minds. But the real shock comes after. Ever since that chance encounter, the world around them has started to shift. Ghosts. Spirits. Unexplainable things. Whatever this man is, he’s opened their eyes to a realm that was never meant to be seen—and a story that was never meant to be told.
BAKEMONOGATARI
A team-up made in manga heaven! The wildly popular Monogatari novel series by renowned bestselling author NISIOISIN has now been reimagined into a knockout manga adapation by none other than legendary artist Oh!Great (Tenjo Tenghe, Air Gear)! One day, high-school student Koyomi Araragi catches a girl named Hitagi Senjougahara when she trips. But—much to his surprise—she doesn’t weigh anything. At all. She says an encounter with a so-called “crab” took away all her weight … Monsters have been here since the beginning. Always. Everywhere.
Yokuoni: Ogres of Greed
In this world, there are creatures that will do anything, no matter how violent, in order to fulfill their desires. They possess extraordinary powers and the people came to call them the Yokuoni. To protect the people against the Yokuoni, Masato Jitsunashi has taken up the job to hunt them. Although he’s a Yokuoni himself, he bears the Justice Greed–the desire to seek justice and sentence them by his own hands.
